G4S looks to secure a Brink's takeover

G4S, the £2.7 billion Anglo-Danish security firm created by the merger of Britain's Securicor and Group 4, is understood to be eyeing a takeover of Brink's, the US cash delivery firm.

Brink's is best-known for being the company behind the then UK firm Brink's Mat, hit by the biggest bullion robbery in British history when £26 million of gold disappeared in a heist at Heathrow 24 years ago. It this week effectively put itself up for sale.

G4S, which with its Swedish archrival Securitas dominates the international security industry, is understood to be considering a bid for Brink's as part of a major global expansion.

New York-listed Brink's, which has a market capitalisation of about £1.5 billion said this week that it is looking at its "strategic options" - financialadviser code for inviting rivals or financial buyers to make a takeover offer.

Brink's, which has been protecting cash shipments since before the American Civil War, has been under pressure for months from activist investors demanding change.

Investors Millbrook Capital and Pirate Capital have been lobbying for a shakeup of the Brink's board, which they accuse of failing shareholders. Nick Buckles, the G4S chief executive who is credited with making a success of the Group 4-Securicor merger three years ago, has been telling City investors G4S has a substantialwar chest with which to buy up weaker rivals.

The group is understood to be close to making a £350 million offer for Global Solutions, the private-equity-owned guarding company that has been criticised for the way it has run the Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre in Bedfordshire and Rye Hill prison in Warwickshire. Global Solutions was owned by Group 4 before its merger with Securicor.

Senior industry sources say G4S is also looking at deals that could transform the group internationally. Targets could include Brink's andProsegur, the privately owned Spanish security firm with a large presence in the growing Latin American market.

Although G4S is on the verge of being promoted to the FTSE 100 after a 30% rise in its stock in the past year, Buckles was in the City earlier this month, trying to persuade investors they are undervaluing the company compared with its rivals in the support sector.

G4S trades on an earnings multiple of about 14 against multiples of around 18 for other outsourcing companies with which Buckles argues G4S, with its model of tying customers to long-term contracts, should be more properly compared. He denies G4S trades at a discount because of the inherent risks in the company's business - in the UK alone, there are 600 security van hits or attempted robberies a year.

Of the Brink's deal or the proposed acquisition of Global Solutions, a spokesman for G4S said: "The company never comments on speculation."